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Old 11-14-2017, 11:32 PM   #6
sir_pudding
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Default Re: [Ultra-Tech] Conservative hard SF... but not implausibly conservative

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Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post
I'm not sure all of this follows. Per Wikipedia, true Type II status may require solar sails thinner than can be built with any real material. I had in mind more what Wikipedia calls a "Dyson swarm".
A Dyson swarm is a type of stellar engine, and Type II civilizations aren't completely lossless (Kardeshev wasn't proposing a violation of the 2nd Law); they are very nearly collecting all the energy of their star, regardless.
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I lean towards biological immortality being possible, but I'm not sure what it has to do with Dyson swarms.
Death is in some ways a problem of resources, and they have vastly more resources now than they evolved to use. Turning that wealth into more life, if that is something they are into, is likely to be successful.

Besides, they have a million year old civilization that hasn't collapsed from war and they have a very conservative approach to new technology, that says "really old people" to me; they definitely have something that endures and gives them a long view.
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Nor is it obvious using the whole star system as a ship would be feasible
They built a Class B stellar engine, Class A engines are actually easier. If they build a statite Shkadov thruster, or even better convert their swarm into a Dyson bubble, they'll have a Class C engine that collects energy and generates thrust.
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—emigrating to a new universe even less so.
It may not be, but it still may be something that they might be interested in doing.

Or maybe they are playing video games on a mastroika brain, and waiting to go extinct because that is the inevitable doom for all things in this universe.

Last edited by sir_pudding; 11-14-2017 at 11:38 PM.
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